Airline leads the way with more than 2,000 seats added to Heathrow
DUBAI, U.A.E.,December 2011: Emirates will become by far London Heathrow’s largest A380 operator in 2012 with four of the double decker aircraft to serve the airport daily.
Following last month’s announcement of a third daily A380 flight from 24th January 2012, Emirates will launch a fourth A380 service from 25th March next year.
The deployment means four of Emirates’ five daily Heathrow flights will be served by the A380 – twice as many as any other carrier.
From 24th January 2012, the A380 will operate flight EK029 to London Heathrow – leaving Dubai at 0940hrs and arriving in London at 1330hrs. From 25th March 2012, the double decker also will operate flight EK005, which departs Dubai at 1545hrs and arrives in Heathrow at 2015hrs. Both services are currently flown by a Boeing 777-300ER.
“This demonstrates the beauty of the A380 – its ability to increase our service to our passengers in style, and without adding traffic to London Heathrow’s busy schedule,” said Salem Obaidalla, Emirates’ Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations, Europe & Russian Federation. “We would like to acknowledge the support and cooperation of the Heathrow authorities in bringing a fourth A380 to the British capital.”
The Emirates’ A380 first touched down in the UK in December 2008 when it commenced a daily service to Heathrow. In June 2010, a second A380 was introduced on the route and in September last year, the airline inaugurated an A380 service to Manchester – the first time any airline had scheduled the aircraft from a regional airport.
The Emirates’ A380 offers 14 flat-bed First Class Private Suites with electrically operated doors and 76 fully-flat mini-pods in Business Class – all with aisle access – on the upper deck. Downstairs, there are 427 comfortable contoured seats in Economy Class, spread across four separate cabins.
Passengers in all classes have a choice of over 1200 channels of films, television programmes, music and games carried on the ‘ice’ entertainment system.
A personal satellite phone is fitted to each seat, which also carries a seat-back sms and email service, along with seat to seat calling and a “My USB” personal picture viewing facility.
